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Curried Sweetbreads

Curried sweetbreads simmered in gravy with optional coconut and pickled mango.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Coconut and mango match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 221 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Curried Sweetbreads

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sweetbreads

  1. Wash and soak the sweetbreads, then place them in boiling water with salt and the whole onion. Simmer for 10 minutes.

  2. Remove from water and let cool completely on a drainer. Cut into half-inch slices.

Cook and serve

  1. Optionally, flour and fry the slices lightly in butter, or place them in enough curried gravy to cover.

  2. For added flavor, you can include grated coconut in the gravy before adding the sweetbreads.

  3. Stew the sweetbreads gently in the gravy for 20 to 30 minutes.

  4. Add lemon juice or chili vinegar to taste, and serve hot.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Coconut + mangotop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together221 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Lemon + mangotop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together302 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Butter + coconuttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Onion + coconuttop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,831 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Sweetbreads
Main protein; they become tender when simmered and then stewed gently in the gravy.
Curried gravy
Carries the flavor and keeps the sweetbreads moist during the gentle stew.
Butter
Browns the flour-dusted slices lightly when frying, adding color and richness.
Lemon juice or chili vinegar
Adds acidity at the end to brighten the rich gravy and balance its flavor.

The step that matters

Stew gently in the gravy. Sweetbreads are delicate, and a hard boil toughens their proteins and makes them dry and rubbery. Keeping the gravy at a gentle simmer lets them stay tender and absorb flavor.

Swap the coconut

The recipe marks coconut as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, veal, flour, butter, lemon, mango):

  1. Limefits about as well
  2. Coconutthe original
  3. Avocadofits about as well
  4. Orangefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, veal, flour, butter, lemon, mango. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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